U.S. District Court Judge Andre Birotte will hold a hearing in Soltysik v Padilla on Monday, March 14, at 10 a.m., in Los Angeles. This is the case on whether California’s law on partisan labels on ballots is unconstitutional. The plaintiffs are registered Socialists, but if they run for partisan office, the ballot says “Party preference: none” next to their names. They want a label that says, “Party preference: Socialist.”
The response from Alex Padilla (represented by Kamala Harris) assumes that the plaintiff is the Socialist Party, and not a potential candidate whose party preference is the Socialist Party.
It is not the Socialist Party that is injured. They might not even support Soltysik. It is Mimi Soltysik who is discriminated against in that she may not express her political views in the same manner as other candidates. In effect, the State of California, is trying to restrict individual speech to viewpoints that it believes are more popular. The 1st Amendment is not needed to protect popular or orthodox speech. It is to protect unpopular speech, or speech that challenges the orthodoxy.
Padilla and Harris should formally withdraw from all involvement in the case.
Mimi Soltysik is a “he”, and he is already the nominee of SPUSA. They had their convention in Milwaukee a while back. It’s common for parties to be plaintiffs on behalf of their nominees.
The Socialist Party is not a plaintiff. Soltysik and McClellan are potential candidates for the Assembly, and their complaint is about their injury.
Have you read their complaint, and the Padilla/Harris reply brief?
Do you think that the misinterpretation of SB 6 was due to Debra Bowen being an ambitious but incompetent politician, or is the unionized staff in the SOS office actively sabotaging the Top 2 Primary?